Tandoori Basil Prawns - by Babu Ji

Ingredients

Tandoori Sauce:

70g corn kernels
50g creamed corn
20mL lemon juice
10g curry powder
7g turmeric
7g sugar
10g salt
10g ginger and garlic paste 15 ml thickened cream

Prawns:

20 prawns, U8 size
80mL lemon juice
15g salt
20g ginger paste
20g garlic paste
80g basil leaves
2 lemongrass sticks
50g kaffir lime leaves 70mL olive oil
200g thick (hung) yoghurt 12g white pepper powder 10g black pepper
5g Himalayan salt
10g roasted cumin powder

To Serve:

Chaat masala (optional)

Method

Tandoori Sauce:

Put all ingredients except cream in a food processor and blend until it becomes a fine paste. Add thickened cream and blend for a few seconds.

Prawns:

Peel the prawns but don’t remove the head and tails, just remove the shell.

Clean the prawns in water. Drain the water then add lemon juice, salt and ginger garlic paste. Keep it cool (under 5°C) for at least 1 hour.

Take a good blender and make a paste of basil, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves by adding olive oil to it while blending.

Blend until it is fine. Take thick yoghurt and add to the basil paste. Add white pepper, salt, black pepper, cumin. Keep it cool for some time.

Set the clay oven at 180 C.

Take the marinated prawns, drain the excess water and now coat each prawn with the tandoori sauce.

Make sure the marinade completely coats each prawn. Keep them under 5 C for at least half an hour.

Take a clay oven skewer and put the marinated prawns on the skewers. Put them inside the clay oven (tandoor) for 3 to 5 minutes. You could also char-grill these on a hot BBQ. Take them off once cooked, hang the skewer and carefully take each prawn from that skewer as the skewer will be too hot.

To Serve:

Sprinkle with chaat masala and enjoy!

Recipe provided by Babu Ji

Photo Credits: Flavours of Urban Melbourne by Smudge Publishing RRP $80